Innovative Methods to Pursue Action on Carbon Technologies

Overview

The use of natural gas for houses accounts for approximately 10% of CO2 emissions in the Netherlands and 15% in Belgium. On average 50% of the energy bill for households is due to heating houses, which is often done by using fossil fuels, such as natural gas. A recent study shows that if (local) governments, housing corporations and home-owners want to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming, a shift from the use of natural gas is of paramount importance. On average each household produces 4 tonnes of CO2 annually by using natural gas as heating source.
The Dutch government has ambitious goals for household consumption of energy: before 2050 all houses need to make use of sustainable technologies in terms of energy sources. Changing energy sources of houses or neighborhoods that have yet to be build can be implemented quite easy. However, changing the energy source of existing structures that make use of natural gas is very challenging, not in the least because of the impact such a shift has on home-owners or housing corporations.
The IMPACT program focuses on testing and evaluating several smart solutions in varying settings (e.g. types of houses or neighborhoods). IMPACT brings the frontrunners on energy transition in the field of home-owners and housing corporations together to stimulate spill-overs to other neighborhoods, cities and regions.

Creation date: 13/12/2017

Bloc onglets

Description

Bloc 1

Overall objective

The main goal of the IMPACT-program is to increase and accelerate the adoption of low- carbon technologies by housing corporations and home-owners in middle-sized cities. The IMPACT program builds on the experience of the Triple-A method and will focus on generating IMPACT in terms of large-scale implementation of low-carbon technologies. Large-scale implementation of low carbon technologies is much needed in making substantial contributions to the Paris Agreement goals.
IMPACT facilitates partners’ ambitions to implement sustainable solutions for home-owner energy transition, resulting in spill-overs to other neighborhoods, villages, cities and regions.
IMPACT aims to make a substantial contribution to partners’ targets for energy transition of home-owners and housing corporations, resulting in at least 2000 tonnes annual CO2 reduction

Bloc 2

Outputs

• Intended goal: 500 houses in which smart solutions for energy transition have been implemented
• Several models for implementation strategies of home-owner and housing corporation-implementation of low carbon technologies
• Multiple knowledge-sharing conferences with policy experts, citizens and scientists to increase awareness on smart solutions for energy transition of houses and to learn from early adaptor-successes
• At least 4 local impact-conferences to increase community awareness and stimulate spill-over adaptation to other regions
• An IMPACT-stimulation strategy in which several critical factors for success of home-owner and housing corporation implementation of energy transition have been identified. The IMPACT-stimulation strategy will be translated to all European languages and will be distributed to all member states, aiming to stimulate EU-wide implementation of sustainable energy sources for houses
• An annual CO2 reduction of at least 2.000 tonnes and a potential annual CO2 reduction of 40.000 tonnes due to spillovers to other neighborhoods, cities and regions

Bloc 3

Expected result

IMPACT aims to achieve concrete results in terms of converting the energy source of existing structures from natural gas to more sustainable energy sources. By exploring, testing and evaluating several implementation strategies IMPACT aims to find the most suitable and cost-efficient tools for the energy transition of houses. Spill-overs to other cities and regions ensure an accelerated market adoption of sustainable energy sources for houses.

Bloc 4

Cross-border added-value

The cross-border cooperation enables the use of the partners’ complementary experience and level of knowledge in devising long-term ambitions in terms of home-owner energy transition. The IMPACT program focuses on sharing knowledge, implementing smart and innovative solutions for home-owner energy transition (from natural gas as main energy source towards more sustainable energy sources) and on evaluating the impact of implemented solutions.
The IMPACT program aims to facilitate cooperation between middle-sized cities in the Interreg Two Seas area in order to implement, test and evaluate different solutions to the energy transition of streets/neighborhoods. This will lead to increased awareness and will facilitate energy transition spill-overs to other neighborhoods, villages and cities.
By pooling resources, smart solutions and knowledge-sharing the IMPACT program will lead to a much greater reach of home-owners and middle-sized cities alone. Finding the most suitable and effective solution for home-owner energy transition will result in a more cost-efficient and faster adoption of sustainable energy sources for home-owners within and beyond the 2 Seas Region.